To:A. G. SHLYAPNIKOV[5]

Published:First published in 1924 inLenin Miscellany II.

      Sent from Berne to Stockholm.

      Printed from the original.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,[1976],

      Moscow,Volume 35,

      pages161-164.Translated:Andrew RothsteinTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive.You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

October 17, 1914

DearFriend,

Iarrived home last night after my lecture tour and found
your letters. Heartiest greetings to you, and, through you,
to all Russian friends. The reply to Vandervelde was given
to a translator yesterday, and I have not yet seen the text.
I will write about it as soon as I see it.

Inmy view the most important thing now is a consistent
and organised struggle against the chauvinism which has
seized upon the whole bourgeoisie and the majority of the
opportunist socialists (and those making their peace with
opportunism—like Mr. Kautsky!). And to perform the tasks
imposed by this struggle it is first of all necessary to
combat the chauvinism of one’sowncountry—specifically, in
Russia the gentryà laMaslov and Smirnov (seeRusskiye
VedomostiandRusskoye Slovo) whose “works” I have
read,[6]or Messrs. Sokolov, Meshkovsky, Nikitin and others whom
you have seen or heard. Plekhanov, as I think you have
already been told, has become a French chauvinist. Among
the liquidators there is evidently
confusion.[1]Alexinsky,they say, is a Francophil. Kosovsky (the Bundist, a
Right-winger, I heard his lecture) is a
Germanophil.[2]It seems
as though the middle course of the whole “Brussels
bloc”[7]of the liquidator gentry with Alexinsky and Plekhanov willbe adapting themselves to Kautsky, who now ismore
harmful than anyone else. How dangerous and scoundrelly his
sophistry is, covering up the dirty tricks of the opportunists
with the most smooth and facile phrases (inNeue
Zeit[8]).
The opportunists are an obvious evil. The German “Centre”
headed by Kautsky is a concealed evil, diplomatically
coloured over, contaminating the eyes, the mind and the
conscience of the workers, and more dangerous than
anything else. Our task now is the unconditional and open
struggle against international opportunism and those who screen
it (Kautsky). And this is what we shall do in the Central
Organ, which we shall shortly issue (probably two little
pages). We must with all our strength now support the
legitimate hatred of the class-conscious workers for the rotten
behaviour of the Germans, and draw from this hatred
a political conclusionagainstopportunism and any
concession to it. This is an international task. It devolves on us,
there is no one else. We must not retreat from it. It is wrong
to put forward the watchword of the “simple” restoration of
the International (for the danger of a rotten conciliatory
resolution on the Kautsky-Vandervelde line is very, very great!).
The watchword of “peace” is wrong: the watchword should
be transformation of the national war into a civil war.
(This transformation may be a long job, it may require and
will require a number of preliminary conditions, but all
the work should be carried onin the directionof preciselysucha transformation, in that spirit and on that line.)
Not sabotage of the war, not separate, individual actions
in that spirit, but mass propaganda (not only among
“civilians”) leading to the transformation of the war into
a civil war.

InRussia chauvinism hides behind phrases about “la
belleFrance” and unfortunate Belgium (and what about
the Ukraine, etc.?) or behind “popular” hatred of the
Germans (and of “Kaiserism”). Therefore our unquestionable
duty is to combat these sophistries. And in order that the
struggle should proceed along precise and clear lines we
need a watchword which generalises it. That watchword
is: for usRussians, from the point of view of the interests of
the working masses and the working class ofRussia, there
cannot be the smallest doubt, absolutely any doubt, thatthelesserevil would be now, at once thedefeatof tsarism
in this war. For tsarism is a hundred times worse than
Kaiserism. Not sabotage of the war, but the struggle against
chauvinism and the concentration of all propaganda and
agitation on the international rallying (rapprochement,
solidarity, agreement,selon les
circonstances[3])

of the
proletariat for the purpose of civil war. It would be a mistake
both to call forindividualacts of shooting officers, etc.,
and to tolerate arguments like the one that “we don’t want
to help Kaiserism”. The first is a deviation towards
anarchism, the second towards opportunism. We, on the
contrary, must prepare mass (or at the very least collective)
action among the troops—not only of one nation—and
carry onallpropaganda and agitation work in that
direction. The direction of our work (stubborn, systematic, maybe
protracted) in the spirit of turning the national war into
a civil war—there is the crux of the matter. The time for
this transformation is a different question, at present still
unclear. We must allow this moment to mature, and
systematically “make it mature”.

Thisis all for the time being. I will write frequently.
You write more often too.

Setforth in greater detail the leaflet of the Petersburg
Committee.

Moredetailsabout the views and reactions of the workers.

Thebalance offorcesamong the “groups” in St. 
Petersburg? That is, have the liquidators grown stronger as regards
ourselves? To what extent?

IsDan at liberty? His position? And that of Chirkin,
Bulkin and Co.?

Moredetails.

Towhom precisely, and in whose name, did you send
a hundred rubles?

Allthe very best.Yours,Lenin

Thewatchword of peace, in my opinion, is incorrect at
the present moment. It is a philistine, parson’s watchword.
The proletarian watchword must be civil war.

Objectively,from the radical change in the situation
in Europe, such a watchword follows for the epoch of a
mass war. The same watchword follows from the Basle
resolution.[9]

Wecan neither “promise” civil war nor “decree” it, but
to go on working—if necessary for a very long time—inthat direction, we are in duty bound. You will see the
details in the Central Organ
article.[4]Meanwhile I am only
indicating the main points of our position, so that we can
reach a really good understanding.

[1]Ourintellectuals in Paris (outvoted in the section by the
workers) have gone as volunteers (Nik. Vas., Antonov and others) and
have issued a stupid non-Party
appeal[10]jointly with the S.R.s. It
has been sent to you.—Lenin

[2]Martovis behaving most decently of all inGolos. But will
Martov hold out?I don’t believe it.—Lenin

[3]Accordingto circumstances.—Ed.

[4]See“The Position and Tasks of the Socialist International”
(present edition, Vol. 21, pp. 35–41).—Ed.

[5]Duringthe imperialist world war Shlyapnikov was sent to Stockholm by
the Petersburg Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. and the Bolshevik group in the
Duma and was for a time the connecting link between Lenin and the Russian
section of the C.C. of the R.S.D.L.P. and the Petersburg Committee.

[6]Leninrefers to P. Maslov’s letter to the editors ofRusskiye
Vedomosti, which was published under the heading “War and Commercial
Agreements” in No. 207 of the paper for September 10 (23), 1914, to the
article by Y. Smirnov (Gurevich), “The War and European Democracy”,
published in No. 202 ofRusskiye Vedomosti, September 3 (16),
1914, and to the appeal by writers, artists and actors “Concerning the
War”, published inRusskoye SlovoNo. 223, September 28
(October 11), 1914.

[10]Atthe beginning of the war part of the Committee of R.S.D.L.P.
Organisations Abroad, which was in Paris, and some members of the Paris
section of the Bolsheviks—N. I. Sapozhkov (Kuznetsov), A. V. Britman
(Antonov) and others—together with the Mensheviks and
Socialist-Revolutionaries approved a declaration on be half of the
“Russian Socialists”, published it in the French press, and then went to
the front.

[7]Leninrefers to the Brussels “Unity” Conference of July 16–18, 1914,
convened by the Executive Committee of the International Socialist Bureau
“for an exchange of opinion” about the possibility of restoring the unity
of the R.S.D.L.P. Represented at the conference were the C.C. of the
R.S.D.L.P. (Bolsheviks), the Organising Committee (Mensheviks), the
PlekhanovYedinstvogroup, theVperyodgroup, the Bund,
the Social-Democratic Party of the Lettish Region, the Social-Democrats of
Lithuania, the Polish Social-Democrats, the Polish Social-Democratic
opposition and the P.P.S. (Letfwing). The
Executive Committee of the International Socialist Bureau was represented
by Emile  Vandervelde, Camille  Huysmans, Karl  Kautsky, A. Nemets and
others. Well in advance of the conference, the leaders of the
I.S.B. reached a secret agreement with the liquidators for joint action
against the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, refused to submit tothe decisions of the Brussels Conference and exposed before the
international proletariat the true aims of the “unifiers”.

[8]DieNeue Zeit(New Times)—theoretical journal of the German
Social-Democratic Party. It was published in Stuttgart from 1883 to
1923. Up to October 1917 it was edited by Karl Kautsky, and afterwards by
Heinrich Cunow. During the First World War the journal took up a Centrist
position and virtually supported the social-chauvinists.

[9]Referenceis to the manifesto on the war passed by the Extraordinary
International Socialist Congress held in Basle, November 24–25, 1912. The
manifesto recommended that in the event of an imperialist war socialists
should use the economic and political crisis evoked by the war to fight for
a socialist revolution.